Canadian mother held by ICE with daughter, 7, speaks out on families ‘suffering greatly’ in detention

Tania Warner and her daughter were detained in Texas facilities deemed ‘unsafe and degrading’ When Tania Warner and her seven-year-old daughter, Ayla, were released after nearly three weeks of detention by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Canadian mother’s joy at regaining her freedom was tempered by the knowledge of the many families who remained incarcerated. “They were wonderful people. I just loved them and I cried so hard when I left, I just wanted to take them all with me,” she said. Warner and Ayla were held in two ICE facilities in south Texas, alongside families from Venezuela, Egypt, El Salvador, Russia and many other countries. Not all of them spoke English – or even shared a common tongue – but the gruelling experience of detention helped forge kinship across identities and languages, said Warner. “I felt camaraderie … we all were united by our experience,” she said. Immigration detainees “are suffering greatly”, enduring months of imprisonment with no due process, with the constant fear of separation from their children and no hope of freedom, Warner said. Like Warner, most of them had committed no criminal offence, but had inst